


A Broken Song in Three Voices

by Terion



Series: Tales from the Emerald Dream [2]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Broken Shore, Fighting, Friendship, Gen, POV Alternating, Personal characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 06:58:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8046697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Terion/pseuds/Terion
Summary: An exploration of my three main Horde toons (Caren Bloodwolf, Tauren Druid; Hresden Duskstrider, Quel'dorei Mage; Necronim/Saran Tathdyl, Undead Rogue) as they travel together to face the events of Broken Shore.





	1. Caren / Farewells and Prayers

Caren had not needed to be told that the Legion had finally arrived in force on Azeroth.

She had been in Thunder Bluff, taking a moment to relax on the heights of her people away from the continued efforts in Draenor, when she had felt the whole world _shift_ . There had been what she could only describe later as a silent scream that rattled her to her core before she’d tasted _fel_ on the back of her tongue. As if she’d been abruptly dropped from the tall bluffs of Mulgore to the corrupted forests of Felwood and even her own wings combined with the swiftest wind didn’t enable her to fly that fast.

Though it set her heart to racing and fingers twitching with the urge to purge the dark energy from the world she loved, Caren remained in the city until the zeppelin arrived with the messenger carrying the Warchief’s orders. She had then gathered with all of the others on the heights, packed in tightly shoulder-to-shoulder on the top tier of Thunder Bluff to listen to their Chieftain read it aloud to the people.

When he asked for the able-bodied and for those willing to put a sword to the Legion, she had very nearly taken flight just to bypass the press of bodies. Instead she had waited, ever patient, and moved forward when she was able to stand with those who she knew had seen as many years or more as she had and those who were barely old enough to have passed their Rites. It made her heart ache but they had as much right as she to defend Mulgore and the Horde and Azeroth herself.

In the whirlwind hours that followed, Caren winged to Bloodhoof Village for one moment to speak to her father’s second mate, mother of her sister. They had never gotten along since she had left Mulgore but Nomri deserved to know the eldest of her once mate might die facing the Legion. She too would tell Alisa, who Caren hoped was far far away from anywhere that might receive the Warchief’s missives.

Terrible as it made her feel since other siblings were likely going to war, she did not think her heart could bear another loss of someone she loved.

After speaking to Nomri, she walked to the edge of the village, sinking to one knee at the edge of the lake facing the direction of Stonetalon. Caren knew the exact location of her father's grave there in the mountains, buried in the old lands of the Winterhoof who had taken in the Bloodwolfs when they had needed it most years before. There was no time to fly there now as the first zeppelins were scheduled to leave Thunder Bluff at sunset but she could face him as she said what might be her last goodbyes to Mulgore.

It was not _her_ home - that had been taken long ago with him - but it was the place her people had found. Thus it deserved a farewell and so would be the site of her last prayers.

Caren gently touched the fingers of one hand against the grass and bowed her head in the direction of her father’s grave.

“Earth Mother,” she began in a low voice. “guide my steps as I journey to defend you and your children. Guide the steps of those who go with me. Guide those who remain behind that they may continue if we fall.”

Lifting her other hand towards the sky where she could feel the last heat of the setting sun against her fur, she continued, “May you have An’she keep hope for victory alive in our hearts and Mu’sha cover our steps that the Legion may not find us until we strike. Grant us strength, Earth Mother, to defend all that is and was and ever shall be. Grant us courage to push back this threat.”

Lowering both hands to the earth then and pressing her palms flat against it, feeling the pulse and flow of nature all around her, Caren finished, “And if we fall in your defense, Earth Mother, bring us peace in knowing that we stood when it mattered most.”

She pushed her magic faintly down into the earth then, seeking the closest seeds to leave a last thing behind and found something that made her smile. “Ah,” mused Caren with a low hum before she pulled the closest little growth to her, curling the fingers of one hand around the little seedling as it sprouted. She urged its growth onward with gentle words in Taur-ahe until it grew into the familiar white flower that was so populous in parts of Kalimdor.

“ _Grow_ ,” breathed Caren then and cast her magic wide, as far as she could. She felt the rest of the seeds break the earth as she rose to her feet then she was in the air, her wings flapping to gain the height she needed to make it back up the bluffs. Holding the spell until she finally caught an upward wind, she released it alongside a scream from her hawk throat as she spiraled up into the slowly darkening sky.

Below her, a field of peacebloom stretched along the shore of the lake, a last gesture of her hope for peace as she went to war.


	2. Hresden / Fear Tastes the Same

Orgrimmar felt like Silvermoon when the Warchief himself announced that the Legion had come.

Not the Silvermoon of now, the city he could barely stand to be in because it was full of shadows and lost dreams. No, it felt like the Silvermoon of his youth when the Scourge had wiped out everything he had known.

As he'd stood there listening, it was suddenly like he was back there. Like he was the gangly young man (for Quel’dorei standards anyway) of back then, some near twenty years ago now, scrambling through the broken streets. For a moment he could feel the dirt and grime underneath his fingernails again, the sticky sheen of his friend’s blood where it had landed against his throat when a ghoul had murdered her, the sputtering heat of flames burning his palms as he called fire again and again _and again_ to fend off the Scourge. He could still _smell_ the choking scent of death in that moment and Hresden turned and fled from his spot thankfully at the edge of the crowd before he had a full on panic attack in the middle of the city.

Somehow he found his way to the secluded corner where he'd left his horse, Corain, since the undead steeds tended to cause issue with the living ones. She whickered at him, flicking her ears to and fro, as he staggered and hit his knees. Hresden bent over to press his gloved hands against the ground, closing his eyes tightly as he fought to control and slow his ragged breathing.

It was harder than it ever had been.

Ever since the fall of his once home he'd had these attacks. They had gotten better over the years as he'd grown older and dealt with his fears as well as learned much of the Forsaken. Though many claimed the undead to be little better than the Scourge they'd come from, he had met many an undead who wished little more than to love what life they had left.

Corain’s bony head butted against his shoulder gently and as her echoey whicker sounded again, he lifted his right arm up and cupped his hand underneath the bulk of her jaw. Turning his head towards her, Hresden heavily breathed in the scent of cold pine that seemed to have followed the horse out of Winterspring where he’d found her years ago. Here was no smell of death, no fire, no blood.

Just him and his horse.

Finally he managed to start slowing his breathing after several long moments but his heart still hammered in his chest, a wild staccato akin to the war drums of the Horde. As he shifted to settle heavily on the ground, legs tangling in his robes, Corain turned to follow him and butted her skull hard against his chest.

“Oohpf, easy girl,” Hresden managed to breathe out as he wrapped her arms around her neck and leaned against her. “I'm okay.”

She snorted in response, shaking her whole body to in turn shake him.

Somehow he managed a laugh despite the tightness taking over his whole body. It was the sort of taut feeling that his sister had always described to him about the time before a hunt or task when she'd been a Ranger of Quel’Thalas and not whatever they called themselves now. Like a bow drawn up so tight that the string sings with stress, what what Lymalis had said. The sort he'd felt facing the Scourge on the icy plains in Northrend or the strange new creatures of Pandaria or the familiar names and faces ( _legends_ practically, almost all long dead in his time) in Draenor.

Yet this was _different._

This was _the Legion_.

Not a part. Not the scattered fragments in Outland or anywhere else. _The Legion itself_ was coming, coming to take or destroy everything and everyone he cared about.

He'd rebuilt his life after Silvermoon and then later Theramore when his sister had left. The Horde was his home...and he would lay down his own sword before he let another home fall without spending all of his magic and possibly his life seeing that it stayed standing.

He would answer his Warchief’s call.

He would go to war again.


	3. Necronim / Familiar Goodbyes

_So it begins again_ , thought Necronim as he heard the criers in Stormwind take up the call of the Legion coming. Of men and women to take up arms for the fight. The same call would be going out amongst the Horde from the Warchief.

He looked up from his spot on the floor with his youngest nephew as he heard soft footsteps moving towards him through the home. His sister, Mara, leaned against the doorframe with sorrow in her eyes.

“You're going aren't you, big brother?”

It was still funny, all these years after he'd found her alive, with him now technically younger than her in his undeath, that she still called him that.

Nodding, Necronim leaned forward to wave a toy wooden horse in his nephew Toric’s face. The boy's bright blue eyes - blue like his had been before death had stolen them, replacing them with the golden light of now - lit up and he babbled in that speech babies had before wobbling forward to snatch it. As he let it go, he replied softly, “I have to, little sister.”

“Why?” demanded Mara, sounding angry. And well she should as she'd lost her husband to the fighting in Draenor, months before little Toric was born.

Rising to his feet, Necronim walked slowly towards her and reached out. She put her hands in his easily - something he still marvelled at, her easy acceptance of the rot he still had never quite come to terms with - and breathed, “I can't lose you again, Saran.”

“I'm already dead, Mara,” he replied, squeezing her flesh and blood fingers gently with his of half-flesh and exposed bone.

“ _Don't_ ,” Mara hissed.

“Little sister,” soothed Necronim, “I do not fear death. And I will go, I _have_ to go, because if I can stall the Legion for one instant from reaching you or the little ones, I'll do it. I would fling myself into the Nether if I knew it would keep you safe.”

Tears welled in her eyes and he wanted to brush them away...but couldn't with only bone for fingertips. Instead she pulled at him and he moved to free his hands, enveloping her in a hug as she sank against his chest with a small sob.

“You're just like Cord,” she murmured. “He always told me that's why he served. To make sure that our family and others stayed safe.”

“He was a good man.” Sergeant Cord Bowman had accepted him - a traitor, an undead, a member of the Horde, an enemy of the Alliance - into his home and his family. Merely on the fact that it made his wife happy to see her brother again, even in undeath. “I'm not, Mara.”

She was silent for a long moment, idly smoothing her hands against the shirt he wore underneath his leathers before breathing, “Yes, you are.”

Necronim flinched because he was _not_ but she had never heard his arguments. Not after he'd told her his reasons for what he'd done. Gently, he grasped her face in his hands and put enough pressure so she would lift hers and look at him. He stared into her eyes - gray, like their mother’s - and said, “I am not a good man, sister, in that I do this for no one else. Just _you_. I will not let the Legion take what's left of my family. I will find true death first before I let anything happen to any of you.”

Her hand touched his cheek then, fingertips stuttering over an old scar he'd earned before death. “You aren't responsible for us,” she breathed.

“I promised Cord.”

Mara blinked then, jerking back a little, and asked, “When? When you were both fighting in Draenor?”

Shaking his head and letting his hands fall from her face, Necronim replied, “Before the Northrend campaign. I asked him to find a way to kill me if I turned back to...what I was...should he happen across me like that. In return he asked me to look after you if something happened to him.” Shaking his head, he finished, “I may have broken some of the promises and oaths I've made over the years, sister, but I've _never_ broken one involving you.”

She stared at him for a long moment, eyes watery and bottom lip quivering, before letting out a soft sob. As she slumped back against him, cradling her head against his shoulder, Necronim curled his arms tightly around her. After a moment her fingers dug into the fabric of his shirt, gripping it tightly.

“You _come back_ ,” she hissed, her voice tight and broken. “You come back to me, big brother.”

Sighing, he replied, “I will make no promises, little sister, but...I will _try._ ”

“Is that the best I get?”

“It's all I have.”

Mara sighed then straightened up, pushing away from him as she forcefully regained her composure. Running her fingers back through her hair, she hurriedly said, “Then...if you're so determined, I'll gather the children. So they can say goodbye.”

For some reason the word _goodbye_ sounded like _forever_ in the way she said it and Necronim reached out to grab her hands. As she stared at him, he said softly, “I'm not going anywhere.” The same promise he'd made years ago, before his arrest, before death and the Scourge and years of them thinking the other long dead had happened.

Mara seemed to remember that because she smiled sadly at him and gave him the same response, though of course now her voice was far deeper than that of the sickly wisp of a girl she'd been then.

“Neither am I.”

She pulled away then, leaving to go find out wherever her other three children had gotten off to. Necronim stood in front of the doorway for a long moment, staring at where she'd been, then turned back towards Toric. The boy was still playing with his toys on the floor, completely unaware of what was going on around him.

Shaking his head, Necronim crouched down and picked him up. As he hefted Toric up into his shoulder, he said, “I may never see you again, lad.” The boy just gummed at the wooden horse in his hand in reply, blue eyes wide on his face, and Necronim forced a smile. “If I do though...I'll teach you to wield a sword when you're old enough. Your sisters too. Make sure you and them do your father proud.”

He owed Cord to take care of his family, of _their_ family, as best he could. So...if he had to claw his way back from death again...he might just find the determination to do it.

He wouldn't disappoint his sister again.


	4. Caren / Together Into the Abyss

Caren was standing off to the side, watching the bustle and chaos and flow of the area around the docks, when she was aware of someone thumping into place next to her with a grunt. At the sound of a wyvern’s hearty purr, she had a good guess at who she'd see as she turned her head.

Necronim smiled up at her though it was nothing like a normal smile. Since death had taken the flesh and muscle from around his mouth, he physically couldn't smile in the normal fashion. She'd known him for many years though and had learned how to read him. His smile was in the slight curve of his dark eyebrows, the lift to the stitches he carefully kept at the edge of the crossover between bone and flesh, and the slight tilt of his head to the left.

“Long time,” was the undead’s only comment as he stood with one arm looped over his wyvern’s neck so he could scratch the big animal underneath the jaw.

Caren just nodded and replied, “Not so long, my friend. How is your family?” She knew he usually quietly  visited his sister in Stormwind around this time, almost like clockwork. Though this visit was surely made somber by the fairly recent death of his brother-in-law.

Shrugging one shoulder, he darkly answered, “Surviving. Sara just got her apprenticeship under a blacksmith confirmed so they should have more soon than what little stipend the crown gives to military widows.” Then he grimaced (as much as he _could_ grimace) as he added, “Though Helen keeps talking about trying to join SI:7 like I did.”

Arching her eyebrows slightly, Caren asked, “I hope you told her to _not_ mention the Tathdyl name? Or that her uncle was once a member?”

“Actually I told her not to apply at all but she's a headstrong little shit. Just like her mother.”

“And her uncle,” she commented, to which the rogue snorted.

Necronim then tilted his chin towards the crowd that was milling slowly towards the boats before asking, “You got a place already?”

“Mostly trying to avoid the bastards locking the majority of healers down to Orgrimmar. Other than that I have a space reserved on one ship with the group I travelled with from Thunder Bluff if I want it but…” Caren trailed off for a moment before saying, “I was hoping one or both of you would be here to come with me.”

“One or both?” repeated Necronim as a shadow fell over the both of them. He turned then and looked up at the elf leaning on the saddle horn of the undead horse that cast the shadow and smiled. “Good to see you out of your tower, mage.”

Hresden snorted and replied, “Good to see you're not in a grave yet, rogue.” He then became solemn as he looked at Caren and inclined his head slightly. “Sister.”

“Brother,” she replied with a gentle smile, reaching out towards him. He straightened up as he laid a hand in hers in return and squeezed tightly for a moment before relaxing again. She hadn't known the quel’dorei as long as she had Necronim but they had a much different relationship.

With Necronim she was the one who'd pulled him out of the proverbial hole he'd thrown himself into after the Lich King’s hold over him was broken. She'd helped point him at finding new ways to live with what he was and, while they were close, it was more friendship than anything. The relationship of two peers.

Hresden, despite being near the same age as her, had been foundering when they'd first met after he and his sister had joined the Horde amongst the crowd of sin’dorei. With his sister having her own problems, she'd found little time for his and Caren had been the one who discovered him in the middle of panic attack behind a hut in Thunder Bluff. She'd calmed him and simply sat with him, asking for no explanation but he'd given it freely. That had prompted her to share her own experiences with loss, eventually telling him things she hadn't even shared with her own sister. They'd built a deep friendship off of the shared loss of family and home and eventually something even stronger had come from that relationship.

“Well,” drawled Necronim, breaking the moment, “gang’s all here. We doing this then?”

Snorting, Hresden pulled his hand back and swung down from his horse as he asked, “You impatient to die, Nec?”

“Death would be a nice reprieve, elfy...but no. I'm just ready to kill these bastards who think they can just take our world and do what they want with it.”

Caren nodded, muttering, “You and I both, my friend,” as Hresden grasped the reins of his horse and pressed his forehead against her exposed skull. Corain made a little echoing whicker in response as he murmured something to her before snorting and butting her head hard against his chest. As the horse turned and walked off with an attitude that could only be described as _affronted_ , she asked, “What did you say to her?”

“That I might not come back,” replied the elf sadly as he rubbed his chest. “I'm going to bet if I do, that pile of bones is going to be right here waiting and not going find my sister like I told her.”

“They're loyal beasts, horses are,” Necronim noted. “Especially the undead ones. You screwed yourself on that one, old man.”

Hresden just smiled at that. “She didn't give me much of a choice about taking her after I literally tripped over her. Stubborn old nag.”

Caren just shook her head then looked over at the ships as a bellow went up from several throats about boarding. “We need to go,” she pointed out, reaching out to rest a hand on both of their shoulders.

She felt Hresden take a deep breath and Necronim rolled his shoulders underneath her hand before he nodded sharply.

“Let's go kill some fucking Legion,” commented the rogue gruffly.

Hresden nodded, saying simply, “Let's.”

“Then walk, gentlemen,” Caren said firmly as she shifted her hands to their backs. “We still have a ways to go.”


	5. Hresden / Boots on Broken Ground

It was chaos before they even got close to shore. Fel fire assailed them from afar, rocking their boat furiously as it crashed into the waters around them, missing them thanks to the skill of the crew manning the vessel.

Others were not so lucky and, as he watched a sail sink beneath the choppy waves, he hoped that those some who had been aboard it would make it to shore. It was a sobering sight and one that brought quiet to the ship except for the furious whipping of the sails and the calls of the crew.

“Hard ta por’, Mistah Dawnbreakah!” bellowed the captain of the ship, a skinny female troll with blue-green skin and bright orange hair tied up high in a ragged tail. She clung to the rigging right in front of their position on the ship, her body bobbing with the motion of it through the waves and her eyes on the steadily approaching shore. “I don’ want ta run aground!”

“Aye, Captain!” replied the sin’dorei at the wheel, his brightly glowing green eyes as focused on the shore as his captain’s. Then the ship began to lurch to the side and Hresden grasped the hilt of his sword to steady himself, pushing enough magic into it to feel the blade’s magic sing back at him. Caren’s heavy hand thumped on his shoulder a moment later and he lifted his own to clench his fingers over hers.

His blood sister might not be at his back but the soul who'd become as good as that was.

Then the captain was screaming at her crew again alongside the few officers on the ship bellowing disembarking orders and he felt panic for one suffocating instant. Caren snarled from behind and above him, the sound purely feline, and Necronim spat a foul sounding curse in Gutterspeak. Hresden remembered to breathe a moment later and quelled the fear as best he could. It had no place here.

Everyone on the ship surged forward as one onto the beach before spreading out, combining with forces from other ships and a few dripping wet figures who had managed to make it to shore from downed ships. He drew his sword, the purple and pink crystalline surface of the blade gleaming with the magic contained in it, as soon as he had room to do so and set his eyes on one of the demons ahead of them on the beach.

A thunderous howl went up from somewhere far away - the distant cry of worgen on the hunt - and then the Horde war horns bellowed in return followed by hundreds of voices calling out war cries that became one raucous cacophony of furious noise. He shouted wordlessly alongside them and heard Necronim from his left raise his voice in a shrill shriek that reminded him of the undead attack on Silvermoon for one brief, terrifying second, before Caren _roared_ from behind them with the voice of a bear and drowned out all sound for a moment.

The whole world descended into one single moment of clarity, his focus narrowing in on the demons arrayed before him and those in his immediate vicinity. Hresden tightened his hand around his sword as he channeled magic into the blade and brought fire to his other hand as the whole of the Horde surged forward at another blast of the war horns.

Eveything after that turned into little more than vague impressions. The heat of fire against his hand as he flung fireball after fireball in the face of a felguard. Caren’s healing magic, so different from his own in its nature, soothing as it flickered around and through him. Empty air flickering before Necronim appeared, his mouth open in a snarl as he buried his blades in a felhound’s throat. An orc warrior, bleeding from a claw wound to the leg, staggering backwards with wild eyes until Hresden stepped around him and lifted his sword to fling the magic gathered along the blade up into the face of a doomguard in a giant blast of fire that distracted it long enough for others to press their attack. Orcs and trolls and tauren, undead and goblin and elves alike, all falling around him, some staggering back up with magic healing their wounds and others never going to rise again.

And then, just like that, he realized how _far_ they'd pressed forward.

Breathing hard, Hresden looked around him at all of the slain demons and asked, “Does this seem...easy?”

“Easy?!” exploded a nearby goblin as Caren stepped up next to him, blood and sand matting her dark fur. There was also blood on her teeth he realized a moment later when she spoke, though he more noticed the sudden weariness in her amber eyes.

“They broke,” she noted quietly. “Broke and retreated. There is a _plan_ here.”

Necronim appeared abruptly, wiping demon ichor from his blades on some sort of cloth, as he asked, “What sort of plan?”

“That, my friend,” replied the healer shortly, “is a question I don't have an answer for.”

Hresden nodded slightly before he heard a cry from ahead of them, the call of a familiar name from the throats of their leaders, trying to ignore the quiver of fear it sparked. _Tirion Fordring._ If someone had downed the paladin… “Doesn't matter,” he growled, shaking himself. “We have to keep going.”

Caren nodded in return as Necronim slipped away again. As the druid began casting healing magic over everyone around them, Hresden tried to ignore the sudden gnawing sensation in his belly that something was terribly, _desperately_ wrong.


	6. Necronim / Scatter to the Winds

“WARCHIEF!”

He was in the middle of twisting his daggers into the spine of a felguard when the Banshee Queen screamed. It was the only reason he didn't drop his blades in abject _shock_. Sylvanas Windrunner had never been his Queen (the last he had ever openly acknowledged was long dead) and he had never liked the way she ruled her portion of the Horde.

In that moment, though, he believed that she cared for the fate of the Horde and her fellow leaders.

Jerking his daggers free, Necronim rushed forward with others as he saw Vol’jin on the ground, bleeding out, tusk broken. He spun around a felguard being driven to the ground by a trio of druids, ducked under the swipe of an infernal’s massive rock arm, before he and several others were nearly mowed over by a cackling gaggle of imps. As he wrestled one into the ground with one hand around its throat and clawed at another over his shoulder that was trying to dig it's way through his leathers, Necronim saw Sylvanas heft the troll’s limp form up onto her horse.

And then she sounded the call for retreat.

As the val’kyr swooped down from the skies, picking up those who could not help themselves or lone stragglers, other Horde war horns picked up the cry. With a snarl, Necronim twisted so he could slam his heel down into the frail chest of the imp on the ground before using both hands to tear off the one on his back. As he snapped it's neck with one swift move, he heard hooves from behind him.

“Where is he?” demanded Caren, her voice frantic and her chest heaving. He noted quickly that she had a wound in her side between the gaps of her simple garb and her own blood was staining her green and brown pants black. “Nec, I can't find him!”

“I'll do it!” he hissed before pointing towards the retreating forms of their army. “You go!” When she looked about to argue with him, Necronim snarled, “I'm not losing _both_ of you, Caren! Get the fuck off the field!”

She snarled, baring abruptly feline teeth at him (which was always a severely off putting sight) but did turn and stomp away, her hooves heavily splashing up dirt muddied by blood in her wake. Let her hate him for making her go. He could live with it.

Snarling to himself, Necronim quickly gauged the distance between him and the oncoming demonic legions. Then he scrambled up onto the rocks that some of the Horde archers and mages had been perched upon and looked for the familiar form of the elven mage. Though he saw a lot of red-clad elves amongst those fleeing, none wore the red scarf or bore the familiar crystalline sword of his friend.

“Damn!” he spat aloud and climbed higher, praying ( _actually_ praying, something he hadn’t done in a damned long time) that Hresden wasn't amongst the dead further down the hill. The demons had already reached that point and if he was there…there was no hope of getting him back now.

“Come, deady!” shouted a white-mohawked troll but Necronim waved him off as he scaled the cliff all the way up to where he could look down and see the Alliance forces. They were forming their own retreat and his dead heart clenched just a little at the sight of the King. _His King_ once upon a time.

Tearing himself away, he started to look again when he heard a wet-sounding cough from somewhere close by. With the focused tenacity of a bloodhound, Necronim followed it as well as the heavy breathing and found Hresden amongst the rocks. The mage’s robes were tattered and bloodstained far beyond recognition and he had his scarf as well as a ripped off section of his robe’s skirt tied tightly around a wound to his right thigh.

“Hello, rogue,” he managed to cough out. Necronim stared for a moment, listening to his wet breaths and hoped that he wasn't about to carry a dead man home. It didn't look like he was bleeding internally as there was no blood on his lips but what was he to know for sure. He knew how to kill people, not heal them. “Come to spare me the misery of death?”

Jumping down into the little alcove the mage had tucked himself into between rocks, Necronim replied, “Come to drag your sorry ass home, elf.”

“I'm dead already,” snarled Hresden back, his eyes glowing a little brighter than they normally did. Less like the gentle glow he'd always possessed and more like the fel glow of the greater sin’dorei population.

“Use that fight for _living_ , not _dying_ ,” snarled the rogue back. He then lunged forward and brushed aside the mage’s feeble fight against him, hefting him up where he could get his shoulders underneath the elf’s arm on the side with his good leg. “I intend for you to actually see old age.”

Hresden let out a weak laugh as the fight left him and he gripped Necronim’s shoulder as they staggered forward. “Haven't you heard, old man?” he asked, trying to keep his tone light despite the pain and fear that could be heard in it. “Seventy is old according to the young pups around now. I'm already an old man to them!”

Hooking his arm around the mage’s waist to half carry him forward, Necronim growled, “Are you _seriously_ going to argue elfy semantics with me while we're fleeing ahead of the whole Legion?”

“I might _die_ and there will be _never_ time for me to argue with you again.”

“Elf, if it wouldn't break Caren’s heart, I would leave you here _so_ fast.”

Hresden just laughed before grimacing, a groan of pain escaping his lips as he put too much weight on his bad leg. His hand gripped Necronim’s shoulder tighter as he hissed brokenly, “You know you'd miss me.”

“Like I'd miss a _boil_ ,” the rogue grumbled back.

Somehow they managed to catch up to some of the stragglers who were getting into the last two surviving Horde ships. Necronim heaved Hresden up first, calling out what he thought were his injuries and that he needed a healer. Then a green hand caught his wrist and the mohawked troll from earlier hefted him up onto the side of the ship as a group of tauren and orcs worked to push it away from shore before splashing aboard. A mage standing at the prow of the ship summoned a wind to turn them slowly towards home and pressed them away from shore just as the Legion crested the hill.

“You’s lucky, deady,” commented the troll next to him. He then jerked his tusked jaw towards where Hresden had been disappeared off to and asked, “Was dat elfy really worth riskin’ yo life for?”

Necronim stared at the troll for a long moment before he said simply, “Yes.” Then he climbed over the side of the ship and slowly made his way over there, keeping to the fringes of the milling group of healers above deck. He easily spotted Hresden and settled on his heels just behind the mage as a weary looking tauren priestess cast magic over his wounds.

As the elf tipped his head back, Necronim asked, “Still alive, old man?”

Hresden just smiled at that and the rogue rose, moving away to stand near the bow of the ship where he could see the sails of the others. Caren was somewhere ahead of them, not knowing if they'd made it back. He just hoped she was letting someone take care of her.

Whenever the mage was capable, he’d see if he knew some way to get in contact with her. If not, he’d wait until they docked again at Orgrimmar.

He was good at waiting.


	7. Caren / Broken But Alive

The familiar smell of Orgrimmar - leather and sand and _orc_ \- brought her crashing out of the exhausted sleep she’d fallen into sometime during the trip back to land and Caren pushed herself up far quicker than she should have. Her wounded side protested, skin still tender from only dregs of magic being left amongst the few healers on board to craft it back together, and she flinched immediately. As she pressed a hand against her side and cast her own magic down into the wound, she heard movement from nearby wherever she was at in the city.

Around her was the familiar inside of a shu’halo hut, so she was in the Valley of Wisdom. Other impressions filtered in as her mind slowly caught up from her state on the ship to the now and as she registered the simple clothes - not her own - that she was garbed in and the comfortable pallet underneath her, Caren also realized she was not alone. Necronim sat cross-legged in the center of the hut, quietly sharpening one of his blades by the low-burning fire, and there was a sleeping form on another pallet across from her. Short, dark auburn hair and long tapered ears revealed it to be Hresden and the panic she’d woken up feeling slowly drained out of her.

“We made it?” she asked.

The rogue snorted in reply before saying without looking up, “If we didn’t, this is a good dream. Impressive too given that I stopped dreaming when I died.” He then paused and slowly lifted his head to look at her, the yellow light at the back of his eye sockets slightly guttered. “You’ve been in and out for days since we got back. Infection was what the priest who was treating you said.”

“And Hresden?” inquired Caren.

Necronim grimaced, the motion a slight downward tug at the stitches around his bare-boned mouth, before replying, “It was close. Infection in his leg where it got clawed to the bone, broken ribs, and a pierced lung. Though I think the most annoying for him was the effect of all that fel magic.” When she cocked her head slightly in confusion as she slowly eased her way up into a sitting position, he explained. “His eyes are more like the blood elves’ now. Not quite on par with some but...you can’t tell the difference anymore.”

Sighing, Caren shook her head at that news. Hresden had always been firm in that he didn’t accept the sin’dorei name that the majority of his kin had taken on. That he wasn’t going to change what he was simply because of what they’d lost and anyone that called him that name tended to get a simple, stern growl of _quel’dorei_ in return.

“At least he’s alive,” she said firmly.

“ _You_ tell him that then. He seemed pretty willing to die when I found him on the field.”

“Why?”

Necronim just shrugged before answering, “He’s been unconscious most of the time since then so I haven’t been able to drag that particular answer out of him.” The rogue then bowed his head and added, “The Warchief’s dead, Caren.”

She jerked in surprise, pain lancing through her side at the motion, and then breathed, “Vol’jin died on the field?

“After we returned. He named…” Necronim paused before finishing. “He named Sylvanas Warchief.”

Caren just blinked several times at that news. Of all the racial leaders of the Horde, the Banshee Queen was the one that was chosen to lead the Horde? Then again...she was the last of the originals from the beginning. Thrall had stepped away to deal with matters of elementals and the Earthen Ring, Cairne had died at the hands of Garrosh via the treachery of Magatha Grimtotem, and Vol’jin was now dead of the Legion. Who else amongst their current leaders had the experience to lead but Sylvanas Windrunner?

“Someone also let Illidan’s demon hunters out of wherever they’ve had them tucked away all these years. They’re working with us now.”

She blinked once at that before shrugging. “It makes sense in that their main goal is to hunt demons and we’re fighting against the Legion. What else did I miss?” When he didn’t immediately answer and just sat there, staring down at his unmoving hands around the knife he’d been sharpening, Caren asked, “Nec?”

The rogue’s shoulders slumped heavily before he breathed, “Varian Wrynn is dead. _My King_ is dead.”

_Oh._

Despite being labelled a traitor to Stormwind before his death, Necronim had always been fiercely protective of his former home. He’d never killed a human unless he had to and hadn’t ever subscribed to the methods or views of the rest of the Forsaken. He barely even claimed the title, preferring the generic _undead_ to being lumped in with those he often called lunatics for their continued work with the plague that had killed them. When she’d convinced him to join the Horde after its foundation, he’d only sworn his loyalty to Thrall as Warchief and refused to make any allegiance to Sylvanas because he’d sworn allegiance to only one King or Queen and he wasn’t going to swear to another.

And now _both_ were dead.

Caren bowed her head at that and murmured, “May the Earth Mother guide his steps.” Necronim muttered something in return that sounded suspiciously like the end prayer for human worshippers of the Light - though she knew he hadn’t practiced his faith since he was young - but she said nothing of it. Instead she simply slowly shifted her way forward across the floor so she could reach out and rest a hand on his shoulder, feeling him tremble for a moment underneath her grip.

Then he looked up at her and said, “The Legion is still coming, Caren. We didn’t stop _anything_.”

She knew he feared for her, for what was left of his family, for the few friends that he had accepted into what he dubbed the ragged shreds of his heart. That they had merely lost and not gained anything except the Illidari was...terrifying.

Refusing to give into fear, Caren reached for the strength and steady surety of the earth and said firmly, “Do not give up now, my friend. This fight is only just starting.”


End file.
